Four Key Recruiting Storylines to Watch As Ohio State Prepares to Host A Plethora of Prospects for Spring Visits

By Garrick Hodge on February 25, 2023 at 10:10 am
Air Noland
Twitter/@AirNoland_
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Spring football is creeping around the corner.

With spring football comes the opportunity for Ohio State’s recruiting staff to host prospects on campus once again. The Buckeyes’ first spring practice will begin on March 7, the first day they’ll begin to host recruits on campus, and conclude with the spring game on April 15. 

A plethora of recruits are expected to be in Columbus over those five weeks, with some already confirming their visits, leading to plenty of salivating OSU recruiting storylines leading up to spring practices. We’ve highlighted a few of the more interesting ones 10 days before the Buckeyes begin practice. 

Will OSU add another quarterback to its 2024 board? 

When it comes to quarterbacks, all eyes will be on four-star Georgia prospect Air Noland’s visit to Ohio State on March 31. Noland, the former high school teammate of Ohio State freshman tight end Jelani Thurman, is considered the 120th-best prospect and 11th-ranked quarterback in the 2024 class per 247Sports’ composite rankings. 

He boasts more than 30 Division I offers, but none of those are from Ohio State. That has the potential to change in the near future. If Noland doesn’t get offered on his visit to Columbus, an offer could always come if he decides to camp at OSU in June, as Ryan Day typically prefers to offer signal-callers after he’s seen them throw in person. 

Nolan helped lead Langston Hughes (Fairburn, Georgia) to an undefeated 15-0 record in his junior season, completing 236 of 323 passes for 4,095 yards, a whopping 55 touchdowns and four interceptions. The top-150 prospect also ran for five touchdowns last year.

Can OSU make a big impression on James Peoples?

Ohio State is investing a good chunk of its time on running back recruiting in 2024. The Buckeyes would like to take two running backs in the cycle, and are heavily interested in in-state prospects Jordan Marshall and Sam Williams-Dixon, the latter of whom is visiting OSU March 7. 

But four-star Texas prospect James Peoples is also emerging as a priority target for the Buckeyes. Peoples included OSU in his top six a few weeks ago and plans on making his second visit to Columbus March 30-April 1. 

“Ultimately, I'll be looking for how I feel with the coaching staff,” Peoples told Eleven Warriors earlier this month of what he’s looking forward to regarding the visit. “Overall, not just Coach Alford, but in person with Coach Day and Coach Hartline and those coaches, you know. Is it a family kind of atmosphere, what type of things are they talking about, do these things align with what I'm feeling? I'll also be looking for like, environment, things around the campus, you know, the people in the campus, I will be asking in-depth questions while I'm there to be able to figure out where I fit in, in this picture. And you know, just get an outlook on the university.”

Peoples has also confirmed he also plans to take an official visit to OSU in June, when he’ll also make official visits to Oklahoma and Alabama. Making a big impression on the talented Texas running back this spring is a crucial step for the Buckeyes to beat out those schools and land Peoples’ commitment in the coming months. 

Will anyone join Ohio State’s 2024 class before official visits?

This is obviously the question everyone wants to know the answer to. But most of Ohio State’s top targets in 2024 don’t plan on pulling the trigger in the spring and want to make their decisions after their official visits in the summer at the earliest. That doesn’t mean plans can’t change, though. 

Perhaps after a successful spring visit, a recruit will get excited about the prospect of becoming a Buckeye and decide to pull the trigger. The best odds of such an occurrence happening would be with an in-state prospect that grew up rooting for the Buckeyes, such as Williams-Dixon or Toledo offensive lineman Marc Nave, to name a couple.

OSU hosting two important cornerback visitors

Two cornerbacks with starkly different situations will be visiting Ohio State this spring. The first is California four-star 2024 prospect Marcelles Williams. Williams is a longtime OSU target, receiving his offer in June 2021. 

In the past year or so, there hasn’t been much momentum with Williams and OSU. That could change with a successful visit, and OSU cornerbacks coach Tim Walton made it a priority to host Williams and his family for a practice this spring. As a top-80 prospect in the 2024 class, the Buckeyes will need to knock the visit out of the park if they want to be considered a serious contender for his commitment, as USC is viewed as the frontrunner in his recruitment.

Another important cornerback visitor this spring is one actually already committed to the Buckeyes, 2025 Georgia cornerback Jontae Gilbert. While Gilbert committed to Ohio State last July, he recently visited Georgia and also plans on visiting Tennessee this spring. But he’s also coming back to Columbus on April 4, so Walton and company will have the chance to continue to prove to Gilbert he’s a top priority for them. 

Holding onto Gilbert’s commitment all the way to signing day two cycles from now is going to be a fight for OSU, so this likely isn’t the last time this particular storyline will come up.

The full list of players currently expected to visit Ohio State this spring is below. The unconfirmed potential visitors section includes prospects who have said they hope or plan to visit Ohio State this spring but have not yet set a date to do so.

3/7

3/9

3/21

3/23

3/25

3/28

3/30

3/31

4/1

4/4

4/14

4/15 (Spring Game)

Unconfirmed potential spring visitors

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